Housing Plan Gets Ok

Developers Will Go Slowly

April 04, 2008|By SETH FREEDLAND, sfreedland@dailypress.com 247-7840

JAMES CITY — A housing project in northern James City that includes some affordable homes has new life, but its developers will wait for buyers to respond to another of its communities before starting construction.

Walnut Grove, a collection of 75 single-family homes and 10 town houses in Norge, won renewed preliminary approval from a county development committee last week after its original OK had lapsed.

Plans for the roughly 30 acres near Norge Elementary School were first approved in 2006 as a project called Jennings Way.

The county's environmental division has issued the developers a land-disturbing permit, but builders Health-E Community Enterprises are putting the residential development on pause for now.

Health-E Community is focusing on its first units at Michelle Point, farther north near Stonehouse.

Those single-family homes, once completed, will be offered for as low as $240,000, according to Healthy-E Community's president, Jay Epstein.

"Once we see how the market performs there, then Walnut Grove," Epstein said.

Currently centrally located at the Walnut Grove site is a house believed to be about 100 years old which has been seen to have historic value. Before any new units are built there, the Anderson-Hughes House - so called for the original owners - will be moved to one side of the property.

The house will then be converted into a family-owned Italian restaurant, Epstein said.

The 10 town houses will be on the other side of the property, with the single-family homes behind. At least five of these units will be offered at affordable prices, according to the deal made by developers.

Health-E Community, a major player in affordable housing in James City, has quite a bit on its development plate right now. Builders are working to improve environmental features at another project, Chestnut Grove, which would supply town houses for as low as $135,000 in the southern area of the county.

And Pocahontas Square near Carter's Grove, off Route 60, only has 16 units still available for tenants out of its planned 96 homes, according to Epstein.

Walnut Grove's name change came when Health-E Communities realized that the site, previously named for the Jennings family who owned the property, was once home to an orchard of walnut trees. There are still walnut trees on the far back of the property, Epstein said.